‘I. . collided. . with. . a. . bush,’ spluttered Reinhart.
‘So I see,’ said Van Veeteren, pulling a chair up to the side of the bed.
‘Number. . fourteen. . I. . remember. . it. . wash. . number. . fourteen.’
‘Bravo,’ said Van Veeteren. ‘There speaks a real police officer.’
This is going to take some time, he thought.
‘I. . haven’t. . become. . an. . idiot,’ Reinhart insisted. ‘But. . it’sh. . shmashed. . my. . jaw. . bone.’
Van Veeteren gave him an encouraging tap on his plastered jaw and looked hard at his bruised and swollen face.
‘You look an even bigger mess than you usually do,’ he said in a friendly tone. ‘So you took the main force of the blow on your face, did you?’
Reinhart coughed and wheezed for a while.
‘There. . ish. . a. . crack. . in. . every. . shing,’ he panted, gesturing towards his head with his unbandaged arm.
‘Do you remember what happened?’ asked Van Veeteren.
Reinhart tried to shake his head, but the effort was too much and he pulled a face.
‘Only. . the. . bush. . number. . and. . I. . thought. . about. . thoshe. . bloody. . Shuccu. . lentsh. . Woke. . up. . in. . the. . ambulansh. . God. . I’m. . sho. . tired. .’
‘Hiller rang,’ said Van Veeteren.
‘I know,’ said Reinhart in one go.
‘He wants me to go back and join the team.’
The expression on Reinhart’s face was impossible to interpret.
‘I haven’t made my mind up yet.’
‘It. . washn’t. . my. . shuggeshion,’ Reinhart insisted.
‘I believe you. But it looks as if you’re going to be off work for a few days.’
‘It’ll. . be. . shome. . daysh. . yesh,’ said Reinhart. ‘But. . I. . have. . a. . favour. . to. . ashk.’
‘Really?’
‘Nail. . that. . bashtard. . shtrangler!’
Reinhart slurped noisily down some juice from a cardboard pack and groaned.
‘I have a question,’ said Van Veeteren when the patient had lain back down on the pillows. ‘I’d like to know how you interpret the situation. Does that badge business really hold water? Do you believe it?’
Reinhart closed his eyes and kept them closed for five seconds before answering.
‘Fifty-one. . pershent. .’ he stuttered. ‘I’m. . fifty-one. . persh. . ent. . con. . vinshed!’
‘Excellent,’ said Van Veeteren.
He stayed there for a while, listening to the faint swishing sound from the air-conditioning system, and recalled his own operation some six years previously. When he saw that Chief Inspector Reinhart had fallen asleep, he stood up carefully and left the ward.
He walked home from Gemejnte Hospital through persistent light rain. He recalled having taken an umbrella with him that morning, but it was presumably still in the antiquarian bookshop. Or at Adenaar’s. He certainly hadn’t left it by Reinhart’s bedside, he was sure of that.
Indecision gnawed away inside him like a well-deserved bout of sickness, and he realized that he would have to devise a way of solving the problem. Something irrational — such as whether the first person he met after turning the corner into Wegelenstraat was a man or a woman. . Or whether there was an odd or an even number of bicycles parked outside the Paradiso cinema.
Draw lots, in other words, and dodge having to make a decision in that way.
Because it certainly wasn’t easy.
Becoming a chief inspector again — albeit for only a short time — was an exceedingly unpleasant thought.
But not doing one’s bit to help solve the case was at least as unpleasant a thought. Especially as he had that confounded priest on his conscience.
Pastor Gassel, who had concluded his journey through this life on a railway line of all places.
And Hiller was expecting to hear his decision the following morning. Oh, shit!
But then again, it struck him just as he had passed by Zuydersteeg and resisted the temptation to nip down to the Society for an hour, perhaps there was a third way? A compromise?
That thought accompanied him all the way home. Was there perhaps a way of turning down Hiller’s offer but nevertheless fulfilling his duty in this peculiar case? Was it possible to find such a solution? A moral short cut.
It would be worth its weight in gold if there was. And most certainly worth thinking about in any case.
Ulrike was not at home — he recalled her having said something about a friend who was having some difficulties. He switched on the standard lamp in the living room and flopped down into the armchair in front of the window. Got up again and set up a CD of Preisner’s Requiem dla mojego przyjaciela before flopping down again once more.
He started recapitulating in detail everything that had happened since the day last autumn when he had bitten into that disastrous olive.
Pastor Gassel.
The lonely — and murdered — women in Moerckstraat.
The baby-faced vicar in Leimaar with his liberal views on sexuality.
Benjamin Kerran.
Moosbrugger.
The Wallburg woman and the missing fröken Peerenkaas, who appeared to have advertised for her murderer. And that unlikely little lapel badge with a pin pointing directly into the superior university world.
And to crown all, Reinhart run over by a bus!
What a story, he thought. What an absolutely improbable story! Thinking about it felt like an extremely dodgy walk over quicksand. A swamp which was mostly bottomless and unknown, and with long distances between the tussocks that would carry your weight.
And the thread linking everything together was thin, just as thin as Moreno and Münster had claimed it was at Adenaar’s.
Nevertheless, it was there. Thin, but strong. It was exactly as they had said, his former colleagues: he had nothing against their analysis.
Five murders, one killer. When he thought about that, all other variations seemed significantly less plausible. It’s better to be looking for one murderer rather than several, Moreno had said — something he’d come out with himself on some occasion or other, she had claimed. That seemed highly likely.
But there was something else he remembered. . No, not remembered, that was too strong a word.
An association. Some sort of link to something that was as yet hidden away in the depths of his subconscious, but with a bit of luck it would come bubbling up to the surface without his needing to strain himself. Or to sacrifice a night’s sleep in order to think about it.
An association that was in fact a confirmation?
Yes, that was presumably the case. He understood the function before he could establish the content, which was quite remarkable. It was a detail that fitted in with all these somewhat bizarre circumstances: Kerran, Moosebrugger, the university world. .
But what? he thought.
What the hell can that detail be?
He went to fetch a dark beer in order to stimulate the mysterious mechanisms of his memory, and just as he was swallowing the final mouthful he received his reward.
By Christ yes, he thought. You can bet your life on it.
He remained sitting there for another quarter of an hour, thinking, and the requiem proceeded via Agnus Dei and Lux aeterna to the Lacrimosa, the most beautiful of all the movements. When the music had finished, he fetched another bottle and sat down at his desk in order to write a note to Chief of Police Hiller.
42
‘You look different somehow,’ said Inspector Sammelmerk, eying Ewa Moreno up and down as she came in through the door. ‘Has something happened?’
‘I’m relieved,’ said Moreno with a smile. ‘Hence my pink cheeks. But it’s pretty banal in fact.’
Sammelmerk thought for a couple of seconds.
‘Your period?’
‘Yes. It started this morning. Ten days late. Can you tell me why we women have to have these kind of problems?’